While a lot of people are busy predicting who will win Nobel Prizes this week, it occurred to me that it would be easier to predict who won’t get the physics prize because they’re dead and therefore no longer eligible. Plus there are those who deserve it and are still alive but probably won’t get it because the Nobel guys don’t seem to like theorists very much.

In any case, I’m limiting my list to scientists I’ve actually interviewed, which of course is not one of the Nobel committee’s criteri...